Optimism is high for a group of eight Biathlon Yukon athletes as they head into their first competition of the season.

On Wednesday, the team will fly out to Canmore, Alberta for the Calforex Cup, which is being held this coming weekend.

"This team of athletes is developed to the point now that to give them an early season race will provide motivation for them," said Judy Hartling, the head coach of Biathlon Yukon. "It will also provide them with sort of a base of where they are at because they want to compete in westerns in February and in nationals in March."

The Yukon contingent have been training regularly since the fall and will benefit in Canmore from a recently held Biathlon Yukon camp that was put on this past weekend.

This year's Biathlon Yukon Winter camp was led by University of Alberta, Augustana biathlon head coach Jacqueline Akerman and former Augustana biathlete Annik Levesque.

Hartling and Biathlon Yukon coach Cassandra Wheeler also assisted the 12 participating Yukon athletes over the weekend.

There was more involved in the camp than just shooting and skiing, including a lot of discussion about strategy as well as tactics. Akerman said after the discussion there was a bit of practice to apply what they had learned.

"So discussion, apply and debrief kind of thing," she said. "What we said is we were just going to overload them with that kind of information and then they can take it and think about it and apply it for the rest of the year."

There was also a time trial race on Sunday that put into practice everything that they had been working on.

Akerman said one of the main strengths that she noticed at the camp was the attitude of the biathletes.

"I really noticed a really positive, hardworking attitude and that's so important as an athlete to have and as a person to have," she said. "Often times we have coaches that just focus so much on technical, technical, technical and they miss the base of a person and you need to have that base of being a good person in order to build a good athlete."

She said she was also impressed with what the athletes already knew and their skills in biathlon.

"Judy and Cassandra, they are obviously putting in a lot of time and a lot of effort because the athletes are doing quite well and I would say they are improving for sure."

Levesque said despite the camp being pretty intensive, the athletes were doing really well.

"The kids here are really fun, really keen and they are pretty knowledgeable as well, so it's going really well," she said. "It's lots of fun."

Aliye Tuzlak was one of the Yukoners that participated in the camp and said she learned a lot.

"It's a lot of fun, we are learning lots," she said.

Tuzlak will travel to Canmore for the weekend meet and said she hopes to compete to the best of her ability and do as well as she can.

She said the camp was a big help in preparing her for the Calforex Cup.